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Sit back and enjoy a collection of verbatim exchanges from the halls of justice, where defendants and plaintiffs, lawyers and witnesses, juries and judges, collide to produce memorably insane comedy.

A: You mumbled on the first part of that and I couldn't understand what you were saying. Could you repeat the question?

Q: I mumbled, did I? Well, we'll just ask the court reporter to read back what I said. She didn't indicate any problem understanding what I said, so obviously she understood every word. We'll just have her read my question back and find out if there was any mumbling going on. Madam reporter, would you be so kind?

The Brethren is the first detailed behind-the-scenes account of the Supreme Court in action.

Bob Woodward and Scott Armstrong have pierced its secrecy to give us an unprecedented view of the Chief and Associate Justices—maneuvering, arguing, politicking, compromising, and making decisions that affect every major area of American life.

Many thought the election of our first African American president put an end to the conversation about race in this country, and that America had moved into a post-racial era of equality and opportunity. Then, on the night of February 26, 2012, a black seventeen-year-old boy walking to a friend’s home carrying only his cell phone, candy, and a fruit drink, was shot and killed by a neighborhood watch coordinator.

And in July 2013, the trial of Zimmerman for murder captivated the public, as did his eventual acquittal.

In her provocative and landmark book, Suspicion Nation, Lisa Bloom, who covered the trial from gavel to gavel, posits that none of this was a surprise: Our laws, culture, and blind spots created the conditions that led to Trayvon Martin’s death, and made George Zimmerman’s acquittal by far the most likely outcome.

America today holds an unhealthy preoccupation with firearms that has led to the expansion of gun rights to surreal extremes. America now has not only the highest per capita gun ownership rate in the world (almost one gun per American), but the highest rate of gun deaths. Despite the strides America has made, fighting a bloody Civil War to end slavery, eradicating Jim Crow laws, teaching tolerance, and electing an African American president, racial inequality persists throughout our country, in employment, housing, education, the media, and most institutions. And perhaps most destructively of all, racial biases run deep in every level of our criminal justice system. Suspicion Nation captures a court system and a country conflicted and divided over issues of race, violence, and gun legislation.

In this original, far-reaching, and timely book, Justice Stephen Breyer examines the work of the Supreme Court of the United States in an increasingly interconnected world, a world in which all sorts of activity, both public and private—from the conduct of national security policy to the conduct of international trade—obliges the Court to understand and consider circumstances beyond America’s borders.

It is a world of instant communications, lightning-fast commerce, and shared problems (like public health threats and environmental degradation), and it is one in which the lives of Americans are routinely linked ever more pervasively to those of people in foreign lands. Indeed, at a moment when anyone may engage in direct transactions internationally for services previously bought and sold only locally (lodging, for instance, through online sites), it has become clear that, even in ordinary matters, judicial awareness can no longer stop at the water’s edge. To trace how foreign considerations have come to inform the thinking of the Court, Justice Breyer begins with that area of the law in which they have always figured prominently: national security in its constitutional dimension—how should the Court balance this imperative with others, chiefly the protection of basic liberties, in its review of presidential and congressional actions? He goes on to show that as the world has grown steadily “smaller,” the Court’s horizons have inevitably expanded: it has been obliged to consider a great many more matters that now cross borders. What is the geographical reach of an American statute concerning, say, securities fraud, antitrust violations, or copyright protections? And in deciding such matters, can the Court interpret American laws so that they might work more efficiently with similar laws in other nations?

While Americans must necessarily determine their own laws through democratic process, increasingly, the smooth operation of American law—and, by extension, the advancement of American interests and values—depends on its working in harmony with that of other jurisdictions. Justice Breyer describes how the aim of cultivating such harmony, as well as the expansion of the rule of law overall, with its attendant benefits, has drawn American jurists into the relatively new role of “constitutional diplomats,” a little remarked but increasingly important job for them in this fast-changing world.

Written with unique authority and perspective, The Court and the World reveals an emergent reality few Americans observe directly but one that affects the life of every one of us. Here is an invaluable understanding for lawyers and non-lawyers alike.

"This lively, original book is likely to be a milestone in America's ongoing fascination with the drama of trials and justice." - Fred Graham, former chief anchor Court TV

Have you ever had the chance to decide the fate of another person? What would you do? In the real-life cases presented to you in this book, you will be the judge and the jury - making the ultimate decision between right and wrong.

Can you convict an abused woman who kills her husband because she is afraid he will beat her again? What about a man who helps his best friend commit suicide to avoid a painful death? Would you allow a feeding tube to be removed from a 92-year-old coma victim so she can die peacefully?

Put yourself in the place of the judge or one of the jurors as you read the details of each case. Many of these trials raise questions that go beyond the law to the heart of one's own moral code.

At the end of each case, after rendering your own verdict, you can read on to find out what really happened.

With the Supreme Court more influential than ever, this eye-opening book tells the story of how the Roberts Court is shaking the foundation of our nation's laws

From Citizens United to its momentous rulings regarding Obamacare and gay marriage, the Supreme Court under Chief Justice John Roberts has profoundly affected American life. Yet the court remains a mysterious institution, and the motivations of the nine men and women who serve for life are often obscure. Now, in Uncertain Justice, Laurence Tribe and Joshua Matz show the surprising extent to which the Roberts Court is revising the meaning of our Constitution.

This essential book arrives at a make-or-break moment for the nation and the court. Political gridlock, cultural change, and technological progress mean that the court's decisions on key topics—including free speech, privacy, voting rights, and presidential power—could be uniquely durable. Acutely aware of their opportunity, the justices are rewriting critical aspects of constitutional law and redrawing the ground rules of American government. Tribe—one of the country's leading constitutional lawyers—and Matz dig deeply into the court's recent rulings, stepping beyond tired debates over judicial "activism" to draw out hidden meanings and silent battles. The undercurrents they reveal suggest a strikingly different vision for the future of our country, one that is sure to be hotly debated.Filled with original insights and compelling human stories, Uncertain Justice illuminates the most colorful story of all—how the Supreme Court and the Constitution frame the way we live.

What happens when public prosecutors, the most powerful officials in the criminal justice system, seek convictions instead of justice? Why are cases involving well-to-do victims often prosecuted more vigorously than those involving poor victims? Why do wealthy defendants frequently enjoy more lenient plea bargains than the disadvantaged? In this eye-opening work, Angela J. Davis shines a much-needed light on the power of American prosecutors, revealing how the day-to-day practice of even the most well-intentioned prosecutors can result in unequal treatment of defendants and victims. Ranging from mandatory minimum sentencing laws that enhance prosecutorial control over the outcome of cases, to the increasing politicization of the office, Davis uses powerful stories of individuals caught in the system to demonstrate how the perfectly legal exercise of prosecutorial discretion can result in gross inequities in criminal justice. For the paperback edition, Davis provides a new Afterword which covers such recent incidents of prosecutorial abuse as the Jena Six case, the Duke lacrosse case, the Department of Justice firings, and more.

A gripping intellectual history reveals how Oliver Wendell Holmes became a free-speech advocate and established the modern understanding of the First Amendment

No right seems more fundamental to American public life than freedom of speech. Yet well into the twentieth century, that freedom was still an unfulfilled promise, with Americans regularly imprisoned merely for speaking out against government policies. Indeed, free speech as we know it comes less from the First Constitutional Amendment than from a most unexpected source: Supreme Court justice Oliver Wendell Holmes. A lifelong skeptic, he disdained all individual rights, including the right to express one's political views. But in 1919, it was Holmes who wrote a dissenting opinion that would become the canonical affirmation of free speech in the United States.

Why did Holmes change his mind? That question has puzzled historians for almost a century. Now, with the aid of newly discovered letters and confidential memos, law professor Thomas Healy reconstructs in vivid detail Holmes's journey from free-speech opponent to First Amendment hero. It is the story of a remarkable behind-the-scenes campaign by a group of progressives to bring a legal icon around to their way of thinking—and a deeply touching human narrative of an old man saved from loneliness and despair by a few unlikely young friends.Beautifully written and exhaustively researched, The Great Dissent is intellectual history at its best, revealing how free debate can alter the life of a man and the legal landscape of an entire nation. A Kirkus Reviews Best Nonfiction Book of 2013

For thirty years, Linda Greenhouse, the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The U.S. Supreme Court: A Very Short Introduction, chronicled the activities of the justices as the Supreme Court correspondent for the New York Times. In this concise volume, she draws on her deep knowledge of the court's history as well as of its written and unwritten rules to show the reader how the Supreme Court really works.

A splendid account of the Supreme Court's rulings on race in the first half of the twentieth century, From Jim Crow To Civil Rights earned rave reviews and won the Bancroft Prize for History in 2005. Now, in this marvelously abridged, paperback edition, Michael J. Klarman has compressed his acclaimed study into tight focus around one major case--Brown v. Board of Education--making the path-breaking arguments of his original work accessible to a broader audience of general readers and students. In this revised and condensed edition, Klarman illuminates the impact of the momentous Brown v. Board of Education ruling. He offers a richer, more complex understanding of this pivotal decision, going behind the scenes to examine the justices' deliberations and reconstruct why they found the case so difficult to decide. He recaps his famous backlash thesis, arguing that Brown was more important for mobilizing southern white opposition to change than for encouraging civil rights protest, and that it was only the resulting violence that transformed northern opinion and led to the landmark legislation of the 1960s. Klarman also sheds light on broader questions such as how judges decide cases; how much they are influenced by legal, political, and personal considerations; the relationship between Supreme Court decisions and social change; and finally, how much Court decisions simply reflect societal values and how much they shape those values. Brown v. Board of Education was one of the most important decisions in the history of the U.S. Supreme Court. Klarman's brilliant analysis of this landmark case illuminates the course of American race relations as it highlights the relationship between law and social reform. Acclaim for From Jim Crow to Civil Rights: "A major achievement. It bestows upon its fortunate readers prodigious research, nuanced judgment, and intellectual independence." --Randall Kennedy, The New Republic "Magisterial." --The New York Review of Books "A sweeping, erudite, and powerfully argued book...unfailingly interesting." --Wilson Quarterly

Revised and now in its 16th edition, Essential Supreme Court Decisions: Summaries of Leading Cases in U.S. Constitutional Law is the most up-to-date and historically thorough guide to the American Supreme Court’s most monumental rulings available today. It proves an indispensable resource for students, lawyers, and anyone interested in our nation's Constitution, and the decisions that continue to shape, define, and challenge it. The Supreme Court grapples every day with issues fundamental to our democracy – from religious expression to freedom of speech to cruel and unusual punishment rulings. Terrorism, profiling, same-sex marriage, police stop-and-search statutes, voting rights and our personal right to privacy, and recent landmark rulings regarding all of these issues are analyzed in this edition, showing us the modern iterations of debates that have raged in some shape or form in America throughout its history.

Small claims court is a place where some look to level the playing field against individuals, businesses, or partnerships that have wronged them in the past. Thousands of Americans end up there each year. Many people cannot afford the cost of a lawyer to ensure a solid case and as a result, are left out in the cold. Small claims courts are not nearly as simple as those television judges make it seem: fixing problems in 30 minutes on dramatized shows. If you are not fully prepared with the right paperwork, evidence, and witnesses, you may end up worse off than before.

With this comprehensive guide, you will get a complete run-through of everything you need to know before you submit your case to court. The book includes a checklist of things you need to look for before filing a claim, information on how the courts work, and all of the legal jargon âe" defined âe" that will be thrown during the process.

You will learn how to state a claim in formal documents and ultimately whether your case has a chance of winning before you file. Different approaches to more than 15 different kinds of small claims cases are provided, including breaches of contract, property damage, personal injury, defective products, breaches of warranty, and nuisance claims. The limitations on monetary compensation in small claims court are outlined for you, along with specific methods for how to calculate your own limit. You will learn how long you have to sue after an offense has occurred and how you can approach a settlement with the plaintiff outside of court. Different legal procedures for bringing legal action against individuals, couples, businesses, and corporations are provided. A detailed chapter about the various filing fees, needed court papers, and court schedules is also provided in this comprehensive book.

Based on hours of interviews with small claims court lawyers and successful defendants, an outline of the process is also included with information on how to get ready for court, prepare your witnesses, and what you can expect on the day you are to be in court. You will learn the difference between various judgments and what options you have after a verdict is reached. For anyone looking into the option of taking legal action against a person or business, this book is a necessary resource that will ensure you are both fully educated and prepared for the process.

Atlantic Publishing is a small, independent publishing company based in Ocala, Florida. Founded over twenty years ago in the company presidentâe(tm)s garage, Atlantic Publishing has grown to become a renowned resource for non-fiction books. Today, over 450 titles are in print covering subjects such as small business, healthy living, management, finance, careers, and real estate. Atlantic Publishing prides itself on producing award winning, high-quality manuals that give readers up-to-date, pertinent information, real-world examples, and case studies with expert advice. Every book has resources, contact information, and web sites of the products or companies discussed.

Many disputes are too big for small claims court but too small to justify a lawyer’s fee. Fortunately, if you are willing to learn the courtroom ropes, you can successfully handle your own case from start to finish.

Represent Yourself in Court breaks the pretrial and trial process down into easy-to-understand steps. Armed with these clear and thorough instructions, you’ll be well prepared to: • transition to law school, if you’re a law student • file court papers • get help from an attorney or legal coach • obtain and prepare your evidence, including social media postings • handle depositions • line up and prepare witnesses • present an opening statement • cross examine hostile witnesses • make and respond to objections • pick a jury if necessary • deal with the court clerk and judge Whether you are a plaintiff or a defendant, this book will help you handle a bankruptcy, divorce, landlord-tenant dispute, breach of contract case, small business dispute—or any other civil lawsuit.

This new edition is completely updated to include the latest rules and court procedures.

Getting deposed? Conducting a deposition? Here's the book you need to take the mystery out of the deposition process and answer questions with confidence. You'll even learn the three "golden rules" for answering questions and the trick questions lawyers often use to influence testimony.

A perfect book for law students, lawyers, legal assistants, witnesses, expert witnesses, and anyone who wants to represent themselves in court, Nolo's Deposition Handbook provides all the information you need to sail through the deposition process with confidence. This edition contains updated statutes, cases, and rules -- plus, new material on "electronic discovery" which applies to information stored in computers, including records and emails.

For thirty years, Linda Greenhouse, the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The U.S. Supreme Court: A Very Short Introduction, chronicled the activities of the justices as the Supreme Court correspondent for the New York Times. In this concise volume, she draws on her deep knowledge of the court's history as well as of its written and unwritten rules to show the reader how the Supreme Court really works.

A monumental investigation of the Supreme Court's rulings on race, From Jim Crow To Civil Rights spells out in compelling detail the political and social context within which the Supreme Court Justices operate and the consequences of their decisions for American race relations. In a highly provocative interpretation of the decision's connection to the civil rights movement, Klarman argues that Brown was more important for mobilizing southern white opposition to racial change than for encouraging direct-action protest. Brown unquestioningly had a significant impact--it brought race issues to public attention and it mobilized supporters of the ruling. It also, however, energized the opposition. In this authoritative account of constitutional law concerning race, Michael Klarman details, in the richest and most thorough discussion to date, how and whether Supreme Court decisions do, in fact, matter.

An important statistical study of the dynamics of jury selection and deliberation that offers a realistic jury simulation model, a statistical analysis of the personal characteristics of jurors and a general assessment of jury performance based on research findings by reputed scholars in the behavioral sciences. "A landmark jury study." --Contemporary Sociology "The book will stand as the third great product of social research into jury operations, ranking with Kalven and Zeisel's The American Jury and Van Dyke's Jury Selection Procedures." --American Bar Association Journal REID HASTIE has taught at Harvard University, Northwestern University and the University of Colorado (where he was Director of the Center for Research on Judgment and Policy). He is now a Professor of Behavioral Science on the faculty of the Chicago Booth Graduate School of Business and a member of the Center for Decision Research. He has published over 100 articles on topics including judgment and decision making, memory and cognition and social psychology. Hastie is widely recognized for his books on legal decision making: Social Psychology in Court (with Michael Saks, 1978), Inside the Juror (1993) and Punitive Damages: How Juries Decide (2002). STEVEN D. PENROD was a legal officer in the Naval Judge Advocate General Corps from 1971-1973. He was a professor of Psychology at the University of Wisconsin, University of Minnesota and the University of Nebraska. He is currently a Distinguished Professor of Psychology at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice, CUNY. He is the author of Social Psychology (1983). NANCY PENNINGTON, professor of psychology at the University of Colorado, Boulder, is acknowledged for her many publications which include Causal Reasoning and Decision Making: The Case of Juror Decisions (1981).

When every other method to collect has failed, a small claim is the right remedy to seek. If you're looking at either prosecuting or defending in a small claims court, with or without an attorney, the information presented in Filing & Winning Small Claims For Dummies is indispensable.

The nuances of small claims courts vary from state to state, but the basic approach in preparing and presenting a small claims case is extremely uniform no matter where you are. Regardless of state or circumstance, you can find, trust, and use the info in Filing & Winning Small Claims For Dummies to prepare yourself for your court date. You'll find everything you need to know including establishing a case, settling or mediating a dispute, fees, applications, and other paperwork, statues of limitations, securing witnesses and experts, preparing for court, filing for appeal, case studies and more. Filing & Winning Small Claims For Dummies also includes the most current information and resources on specific laws, statues, dollar limits, and procedures.

Includes the most current information and resources on specific laws, statues, dollar limits, and procedures Offers practical information on securing witnesses and experts Complemented with real-world examples of small claims court cases

If you're headed to small claims court, either as a plaintiff or a defendant, you'll want Filing & Winning Small Claims For Dummies in your corner!

The Oxford Introductions to U.S. Law: Constitutional Law presents an accessible introduction to the enduring topics of American constitutional law, including judicial review, methods of interpretation, federalism, separation of powers, equal protection, and individual liberties. One of the most important functions performed by the American Constitution and the more than two centuries' worth of cases interpreting it is the allocation of decision-making. Professor Dorf and Professor Morrison frame many of these constitutional debates with this question of authority. When should courts rule that the Constitution takes some issue outside of the domain of ordinary politics? Should courts referee disputes between the branches of the federal government? Should they referee disputes between the states and the national government? Using what standards? This introduction to American constitutional law critically examines the work of the Supreme Court of the United States, which has resolved thousands of constitutional controversies based on the shortest national constitution on the planet. The authors also look beyond the Supreme Court, exploring the arguments for and against judicial review and various versions of popular constitutionalism.

America is a nation founded on justice and the rule of law. But our laws are too complex, and legal advice too expensive, for poor and even middle-class Americans to get help and vindicate their rights. Criminal defendants facing jail time may receive an appointed lawyer who is juggling hundreds of cases and immediately urges them to plead guilty. Civil litigants are even worse off; usually, they get no help at all navigating the maze of technical procedures and rules. The same is true of those seeking legal advice, like planning a will or negotiating an employment contract.

Rebooting Justice presents a novel response to longstanding problems. The answer is to use technology and procedural innovation to simplify and change the process itself. In the civil and criminal courts where ordinary Americans appear the most, we should streamline complex procedures and assume that parties will not have a lawyer, rather than the other way around. We need a cheaper, simpler, faster justice system to control costs. We cannot untie the Gordian knot by adding more strands of rope; we need to cut it, to simplify it.

The federal courts are the world's most powerful judiciary and a vital element of the American political system. In recent decades, these courts have experienced unprecedented growth in caseload and personnel. Many judges and lawyers believe that a "crisis in quantity" is imperiling the ability of the federal judiciary to perform its historic function of administering justice fairly and expeditiously. In a substantially revised edition of his widely acclaimed 1985 book "The Federal Courts: Crisis and Reform," Chief Judge Richard A. Posner of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit provides a comprehensive evaluation of the federal judiciary and a detailed program of judicial reform. Drawing on economic and political theory as well as on legal analysis and his own extensive judicial experience, Posner sketches the history of the federal courts, describes the contemporary institution, appraises the concerns that have been expressed with the courts' performance, and presents a variety of proposals for both short-term and fundamental reform. In contrast to some of the direr prophecies of observers of the federal courts, Posner emphasizes the success of these courts in adapting to steep caseload growth with minimum sacrifice in quality.

Although the book ranges over a variety of traditional topics in federal jurisdiction, the focus is steady on federal judicial administration conceived of as an interdisciplinary approach emphasizing system rather than doctrine, statistics rather than impressions, and caseload rather than cases. Like the earlier edition, this book promises to be a landmark in the empirical study of judicial administration.

Evaluate your claim, figure out your best course of action and represent yourself in small claims court with this definitive guide

Everybody's Guide to Small Claims Court in California gives you step-by-step instructions to bring or defend your case. From preparing evidence and lining up persuasive witnesses, to making a presentation in court and collecting the money you're awarded, this plain English book leads you through the entire process of going to court without a lawyer. Plus, it's the only book around that helps you factor in out-of-court issues, such as personal relationships, to help you determine whether going to court is worth the potential for recovery.

Everybody's Guide to Small Claims Court in California shows you how to:

evaluate whether you have a winning case mediate a settlement determine how much to sue for write your demand letter file and serve papers prepare evidence and witnesses for court plan a winning courtroom strategy convince the judge that you are right collect your money when you win

This edition is updated with the latest rules and statutes for California's small claims courts, including instructions for accessing local courts and finding out their procedures.

A First Amendment Profile of the Supreme Court focuses on the nine justices of the United States Supreme Court and determines their frames for assessing First Amendment cases. In each of the chapters, a justice will be profiled in terms of his or her claims during the nomination hearings and the positions they have taken in significant Supreme Court decisions. The object of these chapters is to provide a rhetorical frame that each of these justices would find appealing regarding First Amendment case law.

Robert A. Williams Jr. boldly exposes the ongoing legal force of the racist language directed at Indians in American society. Fueled by well-known negative racial stereotypes of Indian savagery and cultural inferiority, this language, Williams contends, has functioned “like a loaded weapon” in the Supreme Court’s Indian law decisions.

Beginning with Chief Justice John Marshall’s foundational opinions in the early nineteenth century and continuing today in the judgments of the Rehnquist Court, Williams shows how undeniably racist language and precedent are still used in Indian law to justify the denial of important rights of property, self-government, and cultural survival to Indians. Building on the insights of Malcolm X, Thurgood Marshall, and Frantz Fanon, Williams argues that racist language has been employed by the courts to legalize a uniquely American form of racial dictatorship over Indian tribes by the U.S. government.

Williams concludes with a revolutionary proposal for reimagining the rights of American Indians in international law, as well as strategies for compelling the current Supreme Court to confront the racist origins of Indian law and for challenging bigoted ways of talking, thinking, and writing about American Indians.

Robert A. Williams Jr. is professor of law and American Indian studies at the James E. Rogers College of Law, University of Arizona. A member of the Lumbee Indian Tribe, he is author of The American Indian in Western Legal Thought: The Discourses of Conquest and coauthor of Federal Indian Law.

You don’t need a lawyer to win in small claims court—you need to know how to prepare and present your own case. Smart Win your small claims case

You don’t need a lawyer to win in small claims court—you need to know how to prepare and present your own case. Smart preparation for your day in court can make the difference between receiving a check and writing one.

Everybody’s Guide to Small Claims Court provides the information, tips, and strategies you need to sue someone successfully or put up a winning defense in any state.

Find out how to: file and serve papers mediate an out-of-court settlement prepare evidence to support your case decide how much to sue for line up persuasive witnesses present a winning case collect money when you win This edition is completely updated to include the latest procedures and information for small claims courts in every state. Plus, this book includes useful, practical tips by small claims court judges and commissioners who’ve seen it all.

If you are a California resident? Check out Everybody's Guide to Small Claims Court in California

In recent years the American public has witnessed several hard-fought battles over nominees to the U.S. Supreme Court. In these heated confirmation fights, candidates' legal and political philosophies have been subject to intense scrutiny and debate. Citizens, Courts, and Confirmations examines one such fight--over the nomination of Samuel Alito--to discover how and why people formed opinions about the nominee, and to determine how the confirmation process shaped perceptions of the Supreme Court's legitimacy.

Drawing on a nationally representative survey, James Gibson and Gregory Caldeira use the Alito confirmation fight as a window into public attitudes about the nation's highest court. They find that Americans know far more about the Supreme Court than many realize, that the Court enjoys a great deal of legitimacy among the American people, that attitudes toward the Court as an institution generally do not suffer from partisan or ideological polarization, and that public knowledge enhances the legitimacy accorded the Court. Yet the authors demonstrate that partisan and ideological infighting that treats the Court as just another political institution undermines the considerable public support the institution currently enjoys, and that politicized confirmation battles pose a grave threat to the basic legitimacy of the Supreme Court.

Through the examination of these cases, the authors provide readers with an understanding of the significant role that the Supreme Court performs in shaping the boundaries of governmental power and contours of individual rights and liberties. The review of these modern decisions is provided against a historical backdrop that affords perspective and enriched context. Selection of the landmark decision (Roe v. Wade) as a departure point makes the book particularly useful in understanding the Court's impact upon contemporary American society. Given the controversial nature of this decision, which recognized a woman's liberty to elect an abortion, it also serves as a portal for examining the points and counterpoints with respect to the Court's function. Treadlines during this period profile a Court that grew increasingly cautious in charting constitutional rights and liberties and equality principles and less amenable to unbridled expansion of federal power. Through processes of review that limit protected speech or reflect less concern when speech is burdened by regulation that is not content-based or does not target expression directly, for instance, the Court has imposed significant curbs upon the First Amendment.

Overall, the Supreme Court has become increasingly assertive in reviewing congressional power to regulate in areas that fall within the historical province of the states. This work engenders an appreciation for how constitutional power, rights, and liberties are not a constant over time but works in progress that are subject to the ebb and flow of judicial philosophy. Written for a general audience and particularly accessible for non-law school students and non-lawyers, fact and summary boxes provide quick insight and understanding of cases. Entries include Craig v. Boren (1976), Illinois v. Gates (1983), Immigration and Naturalization Service v. Chadha (1983), Reno v. American Civil Liberties Union (1992), United States v. Virginia (1996), Grutter v. Bollinger (2003), Lawrence v. Texas (2003), Hamdi v. Rumsfeld (2004), and many others. In addition, a glossary defines key terms.

Adrian Vermeule argues that the arc of law has bent steadily toward deference to the administrative state, which has greater democratic legitimacy and technical competence to confront issues such as climate change, terrorism, and biotechnology. The state did not shove lawyers and judges out of the way; they moved freely to the margins of power.

Karl Llewellyn, a legal realist whose views on jurisprudence were influential and sometimes controversial, was also one of the leading teachers of fundamental legal thought. He took seriously the functions of courts, the use of precedent, and the power of rules. In this important book, he laid bare these jurisprudential tools, in support of appellate court thinking at all levels in the legal system. Legal analysis is so clearly picked apart that this work has served as a tool-kit for judicial thinking — and persuasive argument to courts — since it was first published in 1960. And his invaluable appendices show in detail how arguments and judicial expressions can be turned around to the advocate's advantage.

This book is the culmination of a lifetime of analysis of legal thought from one of the legal system’s most important legends. The new digital edition from Quid Pro Books adds a 2015 Foreword by Tulane law professor Steven Alan Childress. It is part of the Legal Legends Series from Quid Pro. Quality ebook formatting includes linked notes, active Contents, active cross-references in text, and proper presentation of text and notes. Other convenient features include fully-linked Index and Table of Cases (using original pagination), so that the reader can easily navigate to the topic or case of interest, and locate references from the original printings. The ebook is carefully proofread and properly presented, unlike many such digital republications today.

Also available in an affordable new paperback reprint edition from Quid Pro Books, and a library-quality hardcover format, both of which embed the original pagination from the original editions so as to maintain continuity across printings. These new printings also feature the 2015 introduction from Prof. Childress.

A splendid account of the Supreme Court's rulings on race in the first half of the twentieth century, From Jim Crow To Civil Rights earned rave reviews and won the Bancroft Prize for History in 2005. Now, in this marvelously abridged, paperback edition, Michael J. Klarman has compressed his acclaimed study into tight focus around one major case--Brown v. Board of Education--making the path-breaking arguments of his original work accessible to a broader audience of general readers and students. In this revised and condensed edition, Klarman illuminates the impact of the momentous Brown v. Board of Education ruling. He offers a richer, more complex understanding of this pivotal decision, going behind the scenes to examine the justices' deliberations and reconstruct why they found the case so difficult to decide. He recaps his famous backlash thesis, arguing that Brown was more important for mobilizing southern white opposition to change than for encouraging civil rights protest, and that it was only the resulting violence that transformed northern opinion and led to the landmark legislation of the 1960s. Klarman also sheds light on broader questions such as how judges decide cases; how much they are influenced by legal, political, and personal considerations; the relationship between Supreme Court decisions and social change; and finally, how much Court decisions simply reflect societal values and how much they shape those values. Brown v. Board of Education was one of the most important decisions in the history of the U.S. Supreme Court. Klarman's brilliant analysis of this landmark case illuminates the course of American race relations as it highlights the relationship between law and social reform. Acclaim for From Jim Crow to Civil Rights: "A major achievement. It bestows upon its fortunate readers prodigious research, nuanced judgment, and intellectual independence." --Randall Kennedy, The New Republic "Magisterial." --The New York Review of Books "A sweeping, erudite, and powerfully argued book...unfailingly interesting." --Wilson Quarterly

A comprehensive resource to resolving difficult airline complaints. This guide helps you file your airline complaint in small claims court on your own without paying astronomical attorney and court fees. If you've suffered from airline abuse and have had your plea ignored, this is the right book for you. Don't settle for puny vouchers they send you. Get the compensation you deserve.

Have You Ever:

Had your airline complaints rejected or ignored?Experienced a big delay and as a result missed a connection? Had lost or damaged luggage and received no or very little compensation? Been stranded at the airport for a long time and didn't receive compensation? Been discriminated against or mistreated by airline staff?Been ignored or abused due to irresponsible airline staff behavior? Been "bumped" off a flight even when you didn't volunteer & received nothing for it?Been troubled by the airlines in any way and not gotten compensated for it?Just wanted to sue the airline but didn't know where to start?

If you said YES to any of the above and have a claim or airline complaints against the airline company you traveled you MUST read this book.

This hot selling book will teach you how to sue an airline by filing your own airline complaints, get legally compensated what you deserve and show that you will not tolerate airline abuse.

A companion to Oxford's The Unpublished Opinions of the Warren Court, this book contains the draft opinions that were prepared by the Justices in the cases included, as well as a short historical preface of each case and an analysis of the legal events occurring after the drafts were sent to the Justices.

A beloved crime reporter revisits some of her biggest assignments and passes judgement on our judicial system—and especially its judges—in this national bestseller.

When Christie Blatchford wandered into a Toronto courtroom in 1978 for the start of the first criminal trial she would cover as a newspaper reporter, little did she know she was also at the start of a self-imposed life sentence. She has been reporting from Canadian courtrooms for the Toronto Star, The Globe and Mail and the National Post ever since. Back in '78, she loved the courts, lawyers and judges, and that persisted for many years. But slowly, surely, she suffered a loss of faith. What happened? It was at the recent Mike Duffy trial she had the epiphany: That judges are the new senators, unelected, unaccountable and overly entitled. Yet unlike senators, they continue to get away with it because any questioning by government or its agents is deemed an intrusion onto judicial independence. In her explosive new book, Christie Blatchford revisits trials from throughout her career and asks the hard questions--about judges playing with the truth--through editing of criminal records, whitewashing of criminal records, pre-trial rulings that kick out evidence the jury can't hear. She discusses bad or troubled judges--how and why they get picked, and what can be done about them. And shows how judges are handmaidens to the state, as in the Bernardo trial when a small-town lawyer and an intellectual writer were pursued with more vigor than Karla Homolka. For anyone interested in the political and judicial fabric of this country, Life Sentence is a remarkable, argumentative, insightful and hugely important book.

Since the beginning of statehood in 1845, Texas municipal courts have served an important role in both local government and the state judiciary. The evolution of these courts can best be described as the gradual accumulation of answers to long-standing questions. In the first 50 years of their existence, municipal courts were plagued by an indefinite legislative mandate and a lack of uniform procedures. In the last 50 years, uniform procedures have been created by the Legislature, many legal issues have been clarified, and, perhaps most notably, municipal courts have begun to gain a collective sense of identity and purpose that were notably absent during their formative years.

There still, however, remain many unanswered questions about municipal courts in Texas. Often an answer that would seem satisfactory in other Texas trial courts falls short because of the subtle nuances in Texas statutory law. As the subject matter of municipal courts continues to evolve, and as the case load of these courts increase, so do the number of people who have questions about the operations of such courts.

What was missing prior to this publication was a book that critically analyzed the nature of municipal courts and the judge’s role in the Texas criminal justice system. This publication fills such a gap by providing a primer to judges assuming a municipal bench, as well as a refresher for seasoned judges. The book is also written for the broad array of people interested in Texas municipal courts (e.g., city officials, attorneys, other judges, legislators, educators, students, and the public at large). Just as municipal courts occupy a unique niche in the Texas judicial system, this book is intended to fill a unique niche in terms of the public’s understanding of the courts with which most Texans come into contact.

Despite having the final word on many policy issues, state supreme courts have received much less scholarly attention than the United States Supreme Court. Examining these often neglected institutions, this book demonstrates that by increasing our knowledge of the behavior of state supreme court judges across differing areas of law, we can enrich our understanding of the function of state supreme courts, and the relations between these institutions and other branches of government. In addition, Judicial Review in State Supreme Courts advances our conceptualization of the judiciary and offers a more general theory about judicial behavior, accountability, and the role of courts in American society. Langer looks at the policy-making powers of state supreme courts, and the conditions under which justices are most likely to review and invalidate state laws, portraying judges as forward thinking individuals who pursue both policy and electoral goals.

Sandra Day O'Connor, America's first woman justice, became the axis on which the Supreme Court turned. She was called the most powerful woman in America, and it was often said that to gauge the direction of American law, one need look only to O'Connor's vote. Then, just one year short of a quarter century on the bench, she surprised her colleagues and the nation by announcing her retirement.

Drawing on information from once-private papers of the justices, hundreds of interviews with legal and political insiders, and the insight gained from nearly two decades of covering the Supreme Court, Joan Biskupic examines O'Connor's remarkable career, providing an in-depth account of her transformation from tentative jurist to confident architect of American law. The portrait that emerges is of a complex and multifaceted woman: lawyer, politician, legislator, and justice, as well as wife, mother, A-list society hostess, and competitive athlete. To all appearances, she was the polite lady in pearls, handbag on her arm. But in the back rooms of politics and the law, she was a determined, focused strategist. O'Connor was the feminist who, rather than rebel against the male-dominated system, worked from within -- and succeeded.

As Biskupic demonstrates, Justice O'Connor became much more than a "first." During her twenty-four-year tenure, she wrote the decisions on some of the most controversial social battles of our time. O'Connor's tie-breaking opinions on issues such as abortion rights, affirmative action, the death penalty, and religious freedom will have a lasting effect far into the future. O'Connor also cast one of the five votes that cut off the Florida recounts and allowed George W. Bush to take the White House in the 2000 contested presidential election. With an eye to the American people and a keen sense of public attitudes, she worked behind the scenes to shape the law and transform the legal standards by which future cases will be decided.

From O'Connor's isolated upbringing on the Lazy B ranch in Arizona through her time as a state legislator to her rise as a justice -- along the way confronting her own personal challenges and crises, including breast cancer -- Biskupic presents a vivid, astute depiction of the justice -- and of the woman beneath the black robe. In so doing, Sandra Day O'Connor also provides an unprecedented look inside the exclusive, famously secretive High Court.

The Roberts Court, seven years old, sits at the center of a constitutional maelstrom. Through four landmark decisions, Marcia Coyle, one of the most prestigious experts on the Supreme Court, reveals the fault lines in the conservative-dominated Court led by Chief Justice John Roberts Jr.

Seven minutes after President Obama put his signature to a landmark national health care insurance program, a lawyer in the office of Florida GOP attorney general Bill McCollum hit a computer key, sparking a legal challenge to the new law that would eventually reach the nation’s highest court. Health care is only the most visible and recent front in a battle over the meaning and scope of the U.S. Constitution. The battleground is the United States Supreme Court, and one of the most skilled, insightful, and trenchant of its observers takes us close up to watch it in action.

Marcia Coyle’s brilliant inside account of the High Court captures four landmark decisions—concerning health care, money in elections, guns at home, and race in schools. Coyle examines how those cases began—the personalities and conflicts that catapulted them onto the national scene—and how they ultimately exposed the great divides among the justices, such as the originalists versus the pragmatists on guns and the Second Amendment, and corporate speech versus human speech in the controversial Citizens United campaign case. Most dramatically, her analysis shows how dedicated conservative lawyers and groups are strategizing to find cases and crafting them to bring up the judicial road to the Supreme Court with an eye on a receptive conservative majority.

The Roberts Court offers a ringside seat at the struggle to lay down the law of the land.

The second edition of Crime Policy in America describes the process of policy-making and the substantive nature of policy directions in crime and justice in America, particularly from the beginning of the 1970s. This book examines the nature of presidential policy-making in crime and justice from Nixon to Obama, congressional policy-making since the birth of the Bill of Rights, and judicial policy-making since the promulgation of the Judicial Act of 1789. The perspective of this book is deeply historical, sociological, and legalistic. Historically, the book has explored the evolution of different policy strategies at different periods of American history; sociologically, it scrutinized the impact of the get-tough policy paradigm on crime and justice, and from a legal perspective it has examined the conflict and the consensus of Congress and the federal judiciary on different issues of crime and justice from drug crimes to sex crimes to counterterrorism. The second edition of the book has particularly illuminated the changing directions of US crime policy from the dominance of the “get tough” approach in the 1980s and 1990s to a more balanced approach to crime control and prevention in the beginning of the 21sr century.

Presented in a new digital edition, and adding a Foreword by Jonathan Lippman, Chief Judge of the state of New York, Good Courts is now available as an eBook to criminal justice workers, jurists, lawyers, political scientists, court officials, and others interested in the future of alternative justice and process in the United States.

Public confidence in American criminal courts is at an all-time low. Victims, communities, and even offenders view courts as unable to respond adequately to complex social and legal problems including drugs, prostitution, domestic violence, and quality-of-life crime. Even many judges and attorneys think that the courts produce assembly-line justice.

Increasingly embraced by even the most hard-on-crime jurists, problem-solving courts offer an effective alternative. As documented by Greg Berman and John Feinblatt—both of whom were instrumental in setting up New York’s Midtown Community Court and Red Hook Community Justice Center, two of the nation’s premier models for problem-solving justice—these alternative courts reengineer the way everyday crime is addressed by focusing on the underlying problems that bring people into the criminal justice system to begin with.

The first book to describe this cutting-edge movement in detail, Good Courts features, in addition to the Midtown and Red Hook models, an in-depth look at Oregon’s Portland Community Court. And it reviews the growing body of evidence that the problem-solving approach to justice is indeed producing positive results around the country.

In this engaging - and disturbing - book, a leading historian of the Court reveals the close fit between its decisions and the nation's politics. Drawing on more than four decades of thinking about the Supreme Court and its role in the American political system, this book offers a new, clear, and troubling perspective on American jurisprudence, politics, and history.

"An incisive consideration of the Supremes, offering erudite yet accessible clues to legal thinking on the most important level."--Kirkus Reviews In this authoritative reckoning with the eighteen-year record of the Rehnquist Court, Georgetown law professor Mark Tushnet reveals how the decisions of nine deeply divided justices have left the future of the Court; and the nation; hanging in the balance. Many have assumed that the chasm on the Court has been between its liberals and its conservatives. In reality, the division was between those in tune with the modern post-Reagan Republican Party and those who, though considered to be in the Court's center, represent an older Republican tradition. As a result, the Court has modestly promoted the agenda of today's economic conservatives, but has regularly defeated the agenda of social issues conservatives; while paving the way for more radically conservative path in the future.

For almost sixty years, the results of the New Deal have been an accepted part of political life. Social Security, to take one example, is now seen as every American's birthright. But to validate this revolutionary legislation, Franklin Roosevelt had to fight a ferocious battle against the opposition of the Supreme Court--which was entrenched in laissez faire orthodoxy. After many lost battles, Roosevelt won his war with the Court, launching a Constitutional revolution that went far beyond anything he envisioned. In The Supreme Court Reborn, esteemed scholar William E. Leuchtenburg explores the critical episodes of the legal revolution that created the Court we know today. Leuchtenburg deftly portrays the events leading up to Roosevelt's showdown with the Supreme Court. Committed to laissez faire doctrine, the conservative "Four Horsemen"--Justices Butler, Van Devanter, Sutherland, and McReynolds, aided by the swing vote of Justice Owen Roberts--struck down one regulatory law after another, outraging Roosevelt and much of the Depression-stricken nation. Leuchtenburg demonstrates that Roosevelt thought he had the backing of the country as he prepared a scheme to undermine the Four Hoursemen. Famous (or infamous) as the "Court-packing plan," this proposal would have allowed the president to add one new justice for every sitting justice over the age of seventy. The plan picked up considerable momentum in Congress; it was only after a change in the voting of Justice Roberts (called "the switch in time that saved nine") and the death of Senate Majority Leader Joseph T. Robinson that it shuddered to a halt. Rosevelt's persistence led to one of his biggest legislative defeats. Despite the failure of the Court-packing plan, however, the president won his battle with the Supreme Court; one by one, the Four Horsemen left the bench, to be replaced by Roosevelt appointees. Leuchtenburg explores the far-reaching nature of FDR's victory. As a consequence of the Constitutional Revolution that began in 1937, not only was the New Deal upheld (as precedent after precedent was overturned), but also the Court began a dramatic expansion of Civil liberties that would culminate in the Warren Court. Among the surprises was Senator Hugo Black, who faced widespread opposition for his lack of qualifications when he was appointed as associate justice; shortly afterward, a reporter revealed that he had been a member of the Ku Klux Klan. Despite that background, Black became an articulate spokesman for individual liberty. William E. Leuchtenburg is one of America's premier historians, a scholar who combines depth of learning with a graceful style. This superbly crafted book sheds new light on the great Constitutional crisis of our century, illuminating the legal and political battles that created today's Supreme Court.

When the Supreme Court upheld the Affordable Care Act, some saw the decision as a textbook example of neutral judicial decision making, noting that a Republican Chief Justice joined the Court’s Democratic appointees to uphold most provisions of the ACA. Others characterized the decision as the latest example of partisan justice and cited the actions of a bloc of the Court’s Republican appointees, who voted to strike down the statute in its entirety. Still others argued that the ACA’s fate ultimately hinged not on the Court but on the outcome of the 2012 election. These interpretations reflect larger stories about judicial politics that have emerged in polarized America. Are judges neutral legal umpires, unaccountable partisan activists, or political actors whose decisions conform to—rather than challenge—the democratic will?

Drawing on a sweeping survey of litigation on abortion, affirmative action, gay rights, and gun rights across the Clinton, Bush, and Obama eras, Thomas M. Keck argues that, while each of these stories captures part of the significance of judicial politics in polarized times, each is also misleading. Despite judges’ claims, actual legal decisions are not the politically neutral products of disembodied legal texts. But neither are judges “tyrants in robes,” undermining democratic values by imposing their own preferences. Just as often, judges and the public seem to be pushing in the same direction. As for the argument that the courts are powerless institutions, Keck shows that their decisions have profound political effects. And, while advocates on both the left and right engage constantly in litigation to achieve their ends, neither side has consistently won. Ultimately, Keck argues, judges respond not simply as umpires, activists, or political actors, but in light of distinctive judicial values and practices.

Fight an unfair ticket in any state!We've all received one -- a traffic ticket that seems completely unfair, the result of an officer's evening quota rather than a serious moving violation. But do you have to pay the penalty and watch your driving record crash and burn?

Not if you choose to fight back! With Nolo's Beat Your Ticket, you'll get the lowdown on the best strategies for beating traffic tickets in court. In plain English, you'll learn how to:

- use the law to fight an unwarranted ticket- analyze the case and decide whether to fight or fold- find out what the police officer plans to say at your trial- find legal assistance and get the most out of it- prepare witness testimony- attack radar and other detection methods- pick a jury- present your case- cross-examine the ticketing officer

Whether you want to contest a common speeding citation, a right-of-way violation, or a non-DUI alcohol-related offense, Beat Your Ticket clearly lays out your options. This edition is extensively updated to reflect your state's current traffic laws, including the latest rules, statistics, and court procedures.

Are you a California resident? Check out Fight Your Ticket & Win in California.

Freer and Redish’s Black Letter Outline on Federal Courts is a tool for the law student or practitioner who wishes to gain a comprehensive understanding of the basic principles of federal jurisdiction and issues of law that arise in determining whether a case is properly in the federal court. This edition will assist in sorting the various rules and constitutional interpretations that serve as guidelines for getting a particular case in the proper forum. It includes a text correlation chart cross-referenced to the leading casebooks on federal jurisdiction. You’ll find numerous examples, short questions and answers, a practice examination, a table of cases, and a glossary of important terms.

A monumental investigation of the Supreme Court's rulings on race, From Jim Crow To Civil Rights spells out in compelling detail the political and social context within which the Supreme Court Justices operate and the consequences of their decisions for American race relations. In a highly provocative interpretation of the decision's connection to the civil rights movement, Klarman argues that Brown was more important for mobilizing southern white opposition to racial change than for encouraging direct-action protest. Brown unquestioningly had a significant impact--it brought race issues to public attention and it mobilized supporters of the ruling. It also, however, energized the opposition. In this authoritative account of constitutional law concerning race, Michael Klarman details, in the richest and most thorough discussion to date, how and whether Supreme Court decisions do, in fact, matter.

Few institutions in the world are credited with initiating and confounding political change on the scale of the United States Supreme Court. The Court is uniquely positioned to enhance or inhibit political reform, enshrine or dismantle social inequalities, and expand or suppress individual rights. Yet despite claims of victory from judicial activists and complaints of undemocratic lawmaking from the Court's critics, numerous studies of the Court assert that it wields little real power. This book examines the nature of Supreme Court power by identifying conditions under which the Court is successful at altering the behavior of state and private actors. Employing a series of longitudinal studies that use quantitative measures of behavior outcomes across a wide range of issue areas, it develops and supports a new theory of Supreme Court power.

You don’t need a lawyer to win in small claims court—you need to know how to prepare and present your own case. Smart preparation for your day in court can make the difference between receiving a check and writing one.

Everybody’s Guide to Small Claims Court provides the information, tips, and strategies you need to sue someone successfully or put up a winning defense.

Find out how to:

file and serve papers mediate an out-of-court settlement prepare evidence to support your case decide how much to sue for line up persuasive witnesses present a winning case collect money when you win

This edition is completely updated to include the latest procedures and information for small claims courts in every state. Plus, this book includes useful, practical tips by small claims court judges and commissioners who’ve seen it all.

If you are a California resident? Check out Everybody's Guide to Small Claims Court in California

International law on sovereign defaults is underdeveloped because States have largely refrained from adjudicating disputes arising out of public debt. The looming new wave of sovereign defaults is likely to shift dispute resolution away from national courts to international tribunals and transform the current regime for restructuring sovereign debt. Michael Waibel assesses how international tribunals balance creditor claims and sovereign capacity to pay across time. The history of adjudicating sovereign defaults internationally over the last 150 years offers a rich repository of experience for future cases: US state defaults, quasi-receiverships in the Dominican Republic and Ottoman Empire, the Venezuela Preferential Case, the Soviet repudiation in 1917, the League of Nations, the World War Foreign Debt Commission, Germany's 30-year restructuring after 1918 and ICSID arbitration on Argentina's default in 2001. The remarkable continuity in international practice and jurisprudence suggests avenues for building durable institutions capable of resolving future sovereign defaults.

You don't need a lawyer to win in small claims court. You need to know how to prepare and present your own case. Smart preparation for your day in court can make the difference between receiving a check and writing one.

Everybody's Guide to Small Claims Court provides the information, tips, and strategies you need to sue someone successfully or put up a winning defense in any state.

Find out how to: file and serve papers mediate an out-of-court settlement prepare evidence to support your case decide how much to sue for line up persuasive witnesses present a winning case, and collect money when you win. This edition is completely updated to include the latest procedures and information for small claims courts in every state. Plus, this book includes useful, practical tips by small claims court judges and commissioners who've seen it all.

If you are a California resident, check out Everybody's Guide to Small Claims Court in California.

LoPucki's provocative critique of Chapter 11 is required reading for everyone who cares about bankruptcy reform. This empirical account of large Chapter 11 cases will trigger intense debate both inside the academy and on the floor of Congress. Confronting LoPucki's controversial thesis-that competition between bankruptcy judges is corrupting them-is the most pressing challenge now facing any defender of the status quo." -Douglas Baird, University of Chicago Law School

"This book is smart, shocking and funny. This story has everything-professional greed, wrecked companies, and embarrassed judges. Insiders are already buzzing." -Elizabeth Warren, Leo Gottlieb Professor of Law, Harvard Law School

"LoPucki provides a scathing attack on reorganization practice. Courting Failure recounts how lawyers, managers and judges have transformed Chapter 11. It uses empirical data to explore how the interests of the various participants have combined to create a system markedly different from the one envisioned by Congress. LoPucki not only questions the wisdom of these changes but also the free market ideology that supports much of the general regulation of the corporate sector." -Robert Rasmussen, University of Chicago Law School

A sobering chronicle of our broken bankruptcy-court system, Courting Failure exposes yet another American institution corrupted by greed, avarice, and the thirst for power.

Lynn LoPucki's eye-opening account of the widespread and systematic decay of America's bankruptcy courts is a blockbuster story that has yet to be reported in the media. LoPucki reveals the profound corruption in the U.S. bankruptcy system and how this breakdown has directly led to the major corporate failures of the last decade, including Enron, MCI, WorldCom, and Global Crossing.

LoPucki, one of the nation's leading experts on bankruptcy law, offers a clear and compelling picture of the destructive power of "forum shopping," in which corporations choose courts that offer the most favorable outcome for bankruptcy litigation. The courts, lured by big money and prestige, streamline their requirements and lower their standards to compete for these lucrative cases. The result has been a series of increasingly shoddy reorganizations of major American corporations, proposed by greedy corporate executives and authorized by case-hungry judges.

We are now more than half a century removed from height of the rights revolution, a time when the federal government significantly increased legal protection for disadvantaged individuals and groups, leading in the process to a dramatic expansion in access to courts and judicial authority to oversee these protections. Yet while the majority of the landmark laws and legal precedents expanding access to justice remain intact, less than two percent of civil cases are decided by a trial today. What explains this phenomenon, and why it is so difficult to get one's day in court? No Day in Court examines the sustained efforts of political and legal actors to scale back access to the courts in the decades since it was expanded, largely in the service of the rights revolution of the 1950s and 1960s. Since that time, for political, ideological, and practical reasons, a multifaceted group of actors have attempted to diminish the role that courts play in American politics. Although the conventional narrative of backlash focuses on an increasingly conservative Supreme Court, Congress, and activists aiming to constrain the developments of the Civil Rights era, there is another very important element to this story, in which access to the courts for rights claims has been constricted by efforts that target the "rules of the game:" the institutional and legal procedures that govern what constitutes a valid legal case, who can be sued, how a case is adjudicated, and what remedies are available through courts. These more hidden, procedural changes are pursued by far more than just conservatives, and they often go overlooked. No Day in Court explores the politics of these strategies and the effect that they have today for access to justice in the U.S.

When the first Supreme Court convened in 1790, it was so ill-esteemed that its justices frequently resigned in favor of other pursuits. John Rutledge stepped down as Associate Justice to become a state judge in South Carolina; John Jay resigned as Chief Justice to run for Governor of New York; and Alexander Hamilton declined to replace Jay, pursuing a private law practice instead. As Bernard Schwartz shows in this landmark history, the Supreme Court has indeed travelled a long and interesting journey to its current preeminent place in American life. In A History of the Supreme Court, Schwartz provides the finest, most comprehensive one-volume narrative ever published of our highest court. With impeccable scholarship and a clear, engaging style, he tells the story of the justices and their jurisprudence--and the influence the Court has had on American politics and society. With a keen ability to explain complex legal issues for the nonspecialist, he takes us through both the great and the undistinguished Courts of our nation's history. He provides insight into our foremost justices, such as John Marshall (who established judicial review in Marbury v. Madison, an outstanding display of political calculation as well as fine jurisprudence), Roger Taney (whose legacy has been overshadowed by Dred Scott v. Sanford), Oliver Wendell Holmes, Louis Brandeis, Benjamin Cardozo, and others. He draws on evidence such as personal letters and interviews to show how the court has worked, weaving narrative details into deft discussions of the developments in constitutional law. Schwartz also examines the operations of the court: until 1935, it met in a small room under the Senate--so cramped that the judges had to put on their robes in full view of the spectators. But when the new building was finally opened, one justice called it "almost bombastically pretentious," and another asked, "What are we supposed to do, ride in on nine elephants?" He includes fascinating asides, on the debate in the first Court, for instance, over the use of English-style wigs and gowns (the decision: gowns, no wigs); and on the day Oliver Wendell Holmes announced his resignation--the same day that Earl Warren, as a California District Attorney, argued his first case before the Court. The author brings the story right up to the present day, offering balanced analyses of the pivotal Warren Court and the Rehnquist Court through 1992 (including, of course, the arrival of Clarence Thomas). In addition, he includes four special chapters on watershed cases: Dred Scott v. Sanford, Lochner v. New York, Brown v. Board of Education, and Roe v. Wade. Schwartz not only analyzes the impact of each of these epoch-making cases, he takes us behind the scenes, drawing on all available evidence to show how the justices debated the cases and how they settled on their opinions. Bernard Schwartz is one of the most highly regarded scholars of the Supreme Court, author of dozens of books on the law, and winner of the American Bar Association's Silver Gavel Award. In this remarkable account, he provides the definitive one-volume account of our nation's highest court.

When the first Supreme Court convened in 1790, it was so ill-esteemed that its justices frequently resigned in favor of other pursuits. John Rutledge stepped down as Associate Justice to become a state judge in South Carolina; John Jay resigned as Chief Justice to run for Governor of New York; and Alexander Hamilton declined to replace Jay, pursuing a private law practice instead. As Bernard Schwartz shows in this landmark history, the Supreme Court has indeed travelled a long and interesting journey to its current preeminent place in American life. In A History of the Supreme Court, Schwartz provides the finest, most comprehensive one-volume narrative ever published of our highest court. With impeccable scholarship and a clear, engaging style, he tells the story of the justices and their jurisprudence--and the influence the Court has had on American politics and society. With a keen ability to explain complex legal issues for the nonspecialist, he takes us through both the great and the undistinguished Courts of our nation's history. He provides insight into our foremost justices, such as John Marshall (who established judicial review in Marbury v. Madison, an outstanding display of political calculation as well as fine jurisprudence), Roger Taney (whose legacy has been overshadowed by Dred Scott v. Sanford), Oliver Wendell Holmes, Louis Brandeis, Benjamin Cardozo, and others. He draws on evidence such as personal letters and interviews to show how the court has worked, weaving narrative details into deft discussions of the developments in constitutional law. Schwartz also examines the operations of the court: until 1935, it met in a small room under the Senate--so cramped that the judges had to put on their robes in full view of the spectators. But when the new building was finally opened, one justice called it "almost bombastically pretentious," and another asked, "What are we supposed to do, ride in on nine elephants?" He includes fascinating asides, on the debate in the first Court, for instance, over the use of English-style wigs and gowns (the decision: gowns, no wigs); and on the day Oliver Wendell Holmes announced his resignation--the same day that Earl Warren, as a California District Attorney, argued his first case before the Court. The author brings the story right up to the present day, offering balanced analyses of the pivotal Warren Court and the Rehnquist Court through 1992 (including, of course, the arrival of Clarence Thomas). In addition, he includes four special chapters on watershed cases: Dred Scott v. Sanford, Lochner v. New York, Brown v. Board of Education, and Roe v. Wade. Schwartz not only analyzes the impact of each of these epoch-making cases, he takes us behind the scenes, drawing on all available evidence to show how the justices debated the cases and how they settled on their opinions. Bernard Schwartz is one of the most highly regarded scholars of the Supreme Court, author of dozens of books on the law, and winner of the American Bar Association's Silver Gavel Award. In this remarkable account, he provides the definitive one-volume account of our nation's highest court.

This study of William Howard Taft and Oliver Wendell Holmes delivers much more than the title suggests, yet the title remains appropriate. This is an account not only of their common membership on the Court in the 1920s but an explanation, by means of a quasi-biographical method, of how they arrived at the summit of their careers as public men. By probing their Puritan influence, the foundations of much of what they believed and ruled upon as judges become clear and persuasive. Their public lives diverged, to be sure. Taft and Holmes both began as judges at the state level only to have Taft veer off in the direction of high-level administrative and elective offices.

The U.S. Supreme Court typically rules on cases that present complex legal questions. Given the challenging nature of its cases and the popular view that the Court is divided along ideological lines, it's commonly assumed that the Court routinely hands down equally-divided decisions. Yet the justices actually issue unanimous decisions in approximately one third of the cases they decide. Drawing on data from the U.S. Supreme Court database, internal court documents, and the justices' private papers, The Puzzle of Unanimity provides the first comprehensive account of how the Court reaches consensus. Pamela Corley, Amy Steigerwalt, and Artemus Ward propose and empirically test a theory of consensus; they find consensus is a function of multiple, concurrently-operating forces that cannot be fully accounted for by ideological attitudes. In this thorough investigation, the authors conclude that consensus is a function of the level of legal certainty and its ability to constrain justices' ideological preferences.

The Waite Court: Justices, Rulings, and Legacy presents a fresh interpretation of the Supreme Court under the tenure of Chief Justice Morrison Remick Waite (1874-1888). An in-depth analysis of key decisions demonstrates how the Waite Court confronted such profound issues as the post-Civil War rights of African Americans and state regulations intended to cope with rampant industrialization.

Highlighting the Court's most famous decision, Munn v. Illinois, which upheld legislation regulating railroad and grain elevator rates, this careful analysis also reviews the Court's unique involvement in the 1876 presidential election electoral predicament. Profiles of the 15 justices who served on the Waite Court include extensive descriptions of the five that rank among the most outstanding justices ever to serve on the Supreme Court.

This delightful book about the history of one of England's magistrates' courts also looks at the rich underlying backdrop of a part of the country that is central to the English legal system. The connection between Middlesex, London and Westminster means that it is packed with facts about such well known and interesting places and events as: The Old Bailey, Newgate Prison, Coldbath Fields, Hicks's Hall, Ludgate Prison, the start of the Metropolitan Police, Tothill Fields, Tyburn, the Gordon Riots, Clerkenwell explosion and Middlesex Guildhall now scheduled as the home of the new UK Supreme Court ... to mention just a few such items. From former times to the present day: plus 100 years at the Uxbridge Courthouse. Justice ancient and modern, imprisonment, bridewells, 'houses of correction' and intriguing cases from the archives - the life and times of the justices of the peace who gave up their time to public service.

Many disputes are too big for small claims court but too small to justify a lawyer’s fee. Fortunately, if you are willing to learn the courtroom ropes, you can successfully handle your own case from start to finish.

Represent Yourself in Court breaks the pretrial and trial process down into easy-to-understand steps. Armed with these clear and thorough instructions, you’ll be well prepared to: file court papers present an opening statement deal with pretrial issues cross-examine hostile witnesses handle depositions make and respond to objections pick a jury if necessary get help from an attorney or legal coach discover, obtain and prepare your evidence deal with the court clerk and judge line up and prepare witnesses Whether you are a plaintiff or a defendant, this book will help you handle a bankruptcy, divorce, landlord-tenant dispute, breach of contract case, small business dispute—or any other civil lawsuit.

This new edition is completely updated to include the latest rules and court procedures.